Chapter 10

Minerva and Kat looked down at the bowl of shimmering liquid as morning sunlight shone through the narrow window in the bathroom. Minerva opened her mouth, just about to announce that it was time to pick which memory to start with when the door to the bedroom thumped, rumbled, then a muffled voice let out a curse. Magic spilled into the air as Minerva ran to the bathroom, scrabbling to get her robes on, while Katarina instead yanked one of the narrow brass tubes that held the towels off the floor out of its metal grips.

The door burst open and Virignia Blyhte III came stumbling into the room. She was dressed in [blank] and was looking about with a bleary, panicky look. “Get your mitts off Minnie, you-” she said, glaring at the bed and the rumpled, empty sheets.

“Gina!” Minerva exclaimed.

“Minerva!” Gina said, stepping into the room. Behind Minerva, Kat grinned and set her makeshift weapon back onto the towel rack. She started to take a robe and slip it on, while Gina grabbed onto Minerva’s robes and shook her slightly. “What were you thinking letting that mad German drag you off in the middle of the night - and me and Harry had no idea where you’d got too, and Selene? Oh! She was no help at all! And-”

She stopped, seeing Kat step around behind Minerva’s back, wearing robes and what Minerva was quite sure might be the smuggest expression this side of the Channel.

“Good lord!” Gina exclaimed.

“Guten Morgen,” Kat said. “Frauline.”

“Don’t you frow-leen me!” Gina hissed. “What have you done to Minerva! She looks...” She narrowed her eyes. “ ... good lord, you look as if you’re glowing. Is dyking out really that good?” She sounded taken aback.

“Gina ... what are you doing here?” Minerva asked, not sure if she should laugh, cry, or dissolve into a puddle of sheerest mortification. “And you ... can’t just ask someone that.”

“Well, you’re already beyond the pale enough as it is, aren’t you?” Gina seemed a mite put off by the idea that her prurient curiosity might be stymied by anything so mundane as good taste and politeness.

Kat harrumphed. “Blythe,” she said, seriously.

Gina flipped her hand dismissively.

“I’m fine!” Minerva said, hurriedly. “Kat did not ... abscond with me. I left with her under my free will.” She glanced at Kat, hoping the answer to that wasn’t hopefully.

“Yeah, and three sheets to the wind,” Gina said, sniffing.

“I don’t drink that much,” Minerva said.

“She was tipsy,” Kat added.

Gina narrowed her eyes. Then her eyes narrowed further still as she craned her head, then pushed past Minerva - who stepped aside with a yelp.

“Good god!” Gina’s voice sounded less offended and more horrified now. She gestured to the bowl of glowing memories, turning back to face Minerva. “Minerva! I ... I’d say ‘did you not remember what I said last night’ but now I’m beginning to think that might actually be the case! You idiot! You ... you ... you ... you Sleeper idiot!” She trembled with anger - or maybe, it was just anger masking fear, fear that Minerva saw haunting in her eyes. “Do you know how dangerous this is?”

Minerva blushed. Kat frowned. “It is just being a fae charm, isn’t it?” she said, shrugging one shoulder.

“Oh, yes, sure, maybe the crazy Huns use Alotexis every other weekend for your refreshments, but in Britain, the spell is sanctioned! The Ministry can send you to prison - hell, back in the day, it was the sort of thing that gone one sent for Transportation!” Her eyes flicked to Kat and she frowned. “Or Extraction.”

Kat growled softly. Minerva coughed. “W-Well, I read about it...” she said.

“Yes, you read about it in a technical manual,” Gina said. “But ... ugh. Sleepers.” She rubbed her palms against her face. “Okay, Alotexis? You can’t put the memories back.” She gestured to the bowl. “They’re going to be in this bowl. Forever. You will never remember whatever you lost. Ever. You have to, if you want, rewatch every single moment of it! And if you took out, say, a year? Two?”

“It was two weeks,” Minerva said, her voice growing cold.

“Two weeks!” Gina put her palms over her face. “Ugh! You’re not getting those back, Minerva! What if you had accidentally yanked a year? Ten? Your whole life! This blasted stuff is sanctioned for a reason.”

Minerva’s face felt hot. Her stomach felt cold, though. The first and immediate reaction she had was to deny that she had done anything wrong, to excuse herself. But she knew, looking back at the facts she knew, that she had been hideously irresponsible. It’s the apple again, she thought. She had summoned apple on apple, thinking she could feed herself with magic. Instead, she had nearly starved herself to death. She had gone to hunt for magical reagents, and she had nearly been captured and strung up by a Faewarden. She made a broom, damn the consequences, and ... genuinely, how lucky was she to have not been dropped from five miles up?

“Lay off her,” Kat said.Her voice was low and growly and she put her hand on Minerva’s shoulder, squeezing her.

“I will once she understands what she did was so bloody foolish,” Gina said, huffing. “You could have died. At least, at least tell me you stayed near whatever memories you’ve relived...” She rubbed the bridge of her nose.

Minerva gulped. “Well...”

“You didn’t,” Gina whispered.

“I was curious!” Minerva exclaimed.

“Mundane society knows about the tale of the cat! And curiosity! And the killing thereof!?” Gina spluttered. “That isn’t just a wizard story, right?”

“The cat did come back from satisfaction, though,” Kat said, her voice holding a satisfied air. Then, concerned, she added. “Though, you weren’t hurt by anything in there, yes?”

Minerva rubbed her shoulders with her hands and ducked her head forward. “No. But ... something noticed me.” She bit her lip. “I ... do you know these dates?” She asked, pointing at the note that she had left for herself. Gina took the note up, frowning as she read it.

“No,” she said. “But you did say you had three dates in mind - and each of them were moments you wanted to sneak around in. Because someone had to mention how Alotexis could be used for spying...” Gina huffed. “I am going to wring Selene’s little neck.”

“ ... I didn’t want to forget anything,” Minerva whispered, slowly. “I wanted to learn.”

“Well, of course, have you met yourself?” Gina grumbled.

Minerva shook her head. “And here, I was worried I had slept with Harry Perry,” she said, her voice edged with sarcasm. The golden liquid frothed, bubbled, writhed, and then the small shapes of Minerva, gasping and moaning softly as she leaned into the embrace of a tall, awkwardly skinny boy, rose from the bubbles. Her robes were half off and she was mewling quietly as Harry clearly kissed along her neck to-

Minerva sprang forward, placing her palms over the bowl, trying to cover it, though she did nothing to hide the sounds at all. Her cheeks burned and the mortification went from what she had thought was the high water mark of her life to some new, transcendental level.

“Stop!” She hissed at the golden liquid while Kat arched an eyebrow and Gina scoffed.

“Hey, I said I called first,” she said.

“Well, Charlotte beat you to that!” Minerva snapped, unable to stop herself.

“That-” Gina scowled. “ ... wait, what date was that!” She grabbed onto Minerva, pushing her aside. Minerva yelped, her palms dripping with golden light as Gina held her wand above the Alotexis and wriggled it left and right, the tip glowing faintly as the bubbling froth glowed out a series of elegant, interlocking lines of script, which floated above the small Minerva’s now exposed breasts. Minerva blushed furiously wondered if a subconscious desire to forget had been part of why her spell had yanked out two weeks, rather than just three specific days.

Gina swelled up like a blimp. “Minerva Schross-Sableknight, you-” she spun around. “That was the day after I tried to get him into bed!”

“Well, I-” Minerva stammered.

“It must not have worked,” Kat said, blandly.

The bubbling froth started to lapse into stillness.

“Oh?” Gina asked as Minerva glared daggers at Kat. Don’t you dare, she thought.

“Minerva was most emphatically a virgin last night,” Kat said, grinning slightly.

Minerva’s entire face was red now.

Gina huffed. “Well, it’s still bad sportsmanship-”

“It won’t happen again!” Minerva said, forcefully. “I ... was ... I was using a philter.”

“You need one?” Gina asked, sounding faintly shocked. “He’s Harry Arthur-Perry, he’s gorgeous and tall and brave and dashing and and and good god, you really are a big lesbian, aren’t you?”

Minerva mutely nodded.

Gina blinked.

“Are you interested in me?” she asked, half-aghast and half-curious.

“She’s mine,” Kat said, firmly.

“I’m just curious,” Gina huffed.

“I’m not anyone’s right now!” Minerva said, hurriedly. Things said in the throws of passion notwithstanding. “I’m ... I’m my own woman, and, and, and ... this isn’t appropriate! To anything! I need to get some measure of my classwork back into my head before Monday starts and all my teachers ask me where my old lessons went.” She frowned at the idea, while Gina nodded.

“Well, you may be fortunate,” she said. “Alotexis tends to leave behind rote and practiced such and such. There’s this old novel, The Empty Man, I think, by Alexandre Dumas.” She nodded. “One of his magicals.”

Minerva blinked. “I’ve ... is that, say, a sequel to The Pale Lady?” she asked.

“The what?” Gina asked.

“The Pale Lady, it was his vampire novel,” Minerva said. “I always liked it more than his Musketeer books.”

“His what books?” Gina shook her head. “No, no, I’m talking about his Magicals. The ones he wrote for his fellow wizards.”

Minerva’s mouth opened, then closed.

“Anyway, The Empty Man is about a Frenchman who awakens without memories deep in their Bastile Umbral and that’s because his memories were taken using the Alotexis, but he could still fence with the best of them!” Gina mimed fencing with a rapier in such a way that would have left Minerva and Kat dead on the pavement.

“Alexandre ... Dumas ... was a wizard...” Minerva whispered slowly.

“Well, of course! If it’s in a novel then it has to be true,” Kat said, her voice dry.

“Let’s test it,” Gina said, putting her finger to her temple. “Minerva, what is the proper measure of a philosopher’s stone extract to begin the base of a stoneskin oil?”

“Two and a half measures, leavened by the extract of willow and boiled for two minutes. Then you mix in the gallstone of a stormdrake, filter it through your alembic and the oil can be applied after a fortnight of resting,” Minerva said, immediately. She blinked a moment after she was done, feeling rather as if someone had flicked her right between her eyebrows.

“See? She’s fine,” Gina said, brightly.

Kat nodded, slowly. “I suppose she has a chance at least.”

Minerva rubbed her hands along her shoulders. She was feeling a mite more settled. Her brow knotted. “When was the...” She blushed. “When was I with Harry?”

“Six days ago,” Gina said. “The...” She cocked her head, looking faintly distant.

“The 1st of October,” Kat said, immediately.

Minerva nodded. “I’ve been saying two weeks, it was closer to three, then. Nevermind. These memories, though? I didn’t want to avoid them. I wanted to research them!” She pointed at the list. “And the 26th? That was when Kat and I fell down the secret passage and into the chamber with the Watcher.”

“I remember that,” Gina said. “Me and Selene and Harry and you went there a few days later-”

“The 31st?” Minerva asked, immediately.

“I don’t know!” Gina said.

“I wasn’t invited,” Kat said, dryly.

“Gina, you are really impossible sometimes,” Minerva muttered.

“I’m not the one who is sleeping with the werewolf German lesbian,” Gina said.

“You’re just jealous,” Kat said, lifting her chin.

“Hey! I could seduce Minerva if I wanted too! I’m just ... not so inclined,” Gina said, flaring brightly at Kat - which provoked such a nonplussed reaction from Kat that Minerva nearly broke down into giggles. She shook her head and turned back to the Alotexis.

“Did we reach the warded room?” Minerva asked.

“We didn’t,” Gina said, frowning. “We had to turn back at the last second.”

“We would have made it if I was there,” Kat muttered.

“Oh would you!?” Gina asked.

“Girls!” Minerva said. “I suppose I should tell you about the Enragé?”

Both Kat and Gina shut up, immediately.

Minerva turned back to them. “Or would you rather vie for my affections?” she smirked, slightly.

“I’m not vying!” Gina exclaimed.

Kat chuckled.

Once Minerva was done recounting her tale, Kat and Gina both looked more thoughtful. Kat frowned. “Sounds French,” she said.

“Must be,” Gina said. “That’d mean it’s Hermetic. That may be involving the Comte Saint Germain or the rest of the Royalist Clique in France.” She huffed. “There are some French beasties that it might be too - we took enough of them with ... Nelson? When he was at Waterloo?”

“That was Wellington,” Kat said, irritated.

Minerva frowned. “So, none of you recognize what kind of magical thing this might be?”

“Not exactly, but we can look it up in the library,” Gina said, leaning against the sink, her fingers drumming in nervous patterns. “There’s a load of bestiaries and monster manuals and manual monsters...” She clicked her tongue. “We’ll find it in any of them that are about French beasties.”

“But it spoke,” Minerva said.

“Yeah, most monsters can speak,” Gina said, distractedly. “Look at Kat.”

Kat frowned.

“I think we should figure that out first, before we jump into any more memories,” Gina said. “Like, you already risked life and limb to look behind a warded door protected by a Warden. Which was one of the things you said you wanted to do.”

“And the others?” Minerva asked.

“Well,” Gina said, scratching at her jaw. “Harry, Selene, you and me were sitting around the table, discussing the issue of Professor Tweed and his little vampire in the dungeon thing.”

“ ... the what?” Minerva asked.

“Oh, this Friday,” Gina said. “Professor Tweed came in during the middle of dinner, screaming his head off. Vampire!” SHe threw her arms wide. “Vampire in the dungeon! Then he dropped dead on the spot.”

“Professor Tweed is dead?” Minerva goggled.

“He’s not dead,” Kat said, snorting. “He was just a mite drained of blood.”

“There are vampires?” Minerva asked.

“Of course there are,” Gina said.

Kat snorted.

“The teachers bundled us all off to our homerooms, then once the immediate danger was passed, they had us all sent down to Underfae Upon Brocéliande until the school could be made secure. Normally, first years and women aren’t allowed in Underfae without permission or else they get into trouble.” Gina sent a reproachful look at Minerva and Kat from her place on the sink. “So, we all discussed what it might be, with the vampire and all, and you got plastered.”

“Tipsy,” Kat said.

Minerva frowned. “Do you think the Enragé was this vampire?”

“Absolutely not,” Gina said, confidently. “A vampire could never, ever, ever escape the kind of bindings you described.”

“Not unless it was let out,” Kat said.

“It?” Minerva asked. “Are vampires people who got transformed by a curse or...”

“It’s a hereditary condition. And some vampires are wizards - they’re called Līċ.” She pronounced the ancient word with gentle care. “The immortality comes with some restrictions which makes the kind of bindings - ward runes and such - doubly effective.” Gina frowned slightly. “And more, the dungeon isn’t the secret area you and Kat described. The dungeon is more near the heart of Hexgramatica...” Gina rubbed her chin.

Minerva frowned. Then she turned to golden liquid of her memories. She spoke, clearly: “What was I doing when Professor Tweed came out, screaming about vampires in the dungeons?”

The bubbles frothed, rose, then there was Minerva, crouching and peering around the corner of some wall. Next to her stood a rather terrified looking Harry, who hissed.

“You said he wasn’t likely to wake up!”

“Exactly! Likely!” Minerva whispered back.

A third voice, just out of the side of the bowl, sounding distorted and echoing, added. “Well, at least he didn’t see our faces, I suppose.”

“Were in a great deal of trouble, aren’t we?” Harry asked.

The liquid sloughed down.

“ ... that’s a reason to get a memory out of one’s head,” Gina said, slowly.

Kat stood up, frowning as she did so. She tugged on her white shirt, buttoning it up - not bothering with much in the way of undergarments. With her jacket, it wouldn’t be overly noticeable. As she buttoned, she growled. “I’m going to get Harry. And who was that third voice?”

“Don’t recognize them,” Gina said.

Minerva was almost sure she did. Her brow knotted. But before she could pin it down, Kat had fully dressed and was out the front door, thumping down the corridors of the Underfae inn. Once she was gone, Gina chuckled. “So, uh, it seems you’re quite the troublemaker. Stealing my mum’s broom, sneaking out with girls-”

“I don’t try to be a troublemaker!” Minerva said. “I’m just curious and ... and ... poor!”

“Heh!” Gina laughed.

The door to the room banged open and a rather harried Harry was pushed in by the nape of his neck, held firmly by Kat’s broad palm. He stumbled and then blanched as he saw the Alotexis. “I thought we agreed not to do this,” he said, shaking his head.